1909 Penny

There are 6 versions of the 1909 penny. All Lincoln cents were made of 95% copper and 5% zinc and the Indian head cents were 100% copper. Old pennies are still pretty easy to find and they are available both at coin shops and in change at your local store.

DisclaimerI am making the assumption for this article that the penny was found at a store and has been circulated and will not mention the super prices that go along with coins that are in perfect condition. All prices are estimates. Dealers and collectors pay differing amounts at different times for different reasons.

1909 Lincoln Wheat Pennies

There were 72,700,000 of the 1909 Lincoln pennies minted at Philadelphia that had no mint marks or the initials of the artist. These are the most common of the 6 varieties. These are commonly referred to simply as the 1909 Penny. The collectors value of these wheat pennies are between $1.00 and $5.00 depending on the quality.

The 1909 wheat penny that was minted in Philadelphia that contains the initials VDB are worth a little bit more. There were 27,995,000 of these cents minted. These pennies are worth approximately $9.00 to $12.00 and are called the 1909 VDB Penny.

There were 1,825,000 of the copper wheat pennies without the artist's initials that were minted at the San Francisco Mint. These are commonly referred to as the 1909-S Penny. The 1909-S copper cent is worth between $50.00 and $150.00 depending on the quality.

The 1909 wheat cent that most people would like to run across is the 1909-S VDB Penny. There were only 484,000 of these minted and the price range for these is between $500.00 and $1100.00. Again these are estimates that are determined by the quality of the penny being considered. This one would go a lot more if you found one that was in perfect and uncirculated condition.

1909 Indian Head Copper Pennies

1909 was the last year that the Indian Head penny was minted. These were minted at both Philadelphia and San Francisco.

The 1909 Indian Head Cent that was minted at Philadelphia has no mint mark and there were 14,400,000 minted. These are worth between $8.00 and $13.00 depending on the quality.

The 1909-S Indian Head Cent was minted at San Francisco and they made 309,000 of these. These are worth about $450.00 to 600.00.

If you've run across an old Indian Head Penny or Wheat Penny and it is in worn to decent quality you can get a few bucks to a pretty nice chunk of change for them. Whether you are a collector of penny's or just ran across something that looked interesting when you got your change at the store take a peek at the date and see if maybe you've found a 1909 Penny. If the 1909 version is out of your reach the more common 1910 Penny is a low cost good starter penny.